


Neville/ Reader: The Ones Who Go Unnoticed

by Belugalumps



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Childhood Memories, F/M, Friendship/Love, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 20:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4034122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belugalumps/pseuds/Belugalumps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You start as a first year, alone and awkward. Then you meet Neville. Your friendship blossoms and romance even starts to form but will his fight against the dark lord tear you apart?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Year 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Harry Potter sorry.  
> Also, I dedicate this story to my friend Hannah whose love for Neville Longbottom is almost as passionate as my own :))

It is the first day of Wizarding School and you already feel like a total squib. You are late to breakfast so the only kids left are the seventh year Slytherins throwing biscuits at one another then deflecting them with magic. Your robes are too long and you trip on them up the steps to your dorm, the stone cutting into your knobby legs. Your project in Herbology manages to die within the first class period so Professor Sprout, the head of your house, gives you one of her slightly-pitying-slightly-disappointed chubby cheeked frowns. And now, to top it all off, you trip once more running from the greenhouse. You inhale the dirt and let the tears drip from your nose, forming a little puddle of mud. It isn’t even lunch yet!  
It’s your first day at Hogwarts and you already want to die (after giving consent for your remains to be used as fertilizer for Sprout's plants of course).  
“Oof!”  
Suddenly a chunk of a body comes crashing down on your own, pushing your face deeper in the earth. The boy kicks you in the shin then elbows you in the shoulder in an attempt to roll off your floundering frame.  
“Sorry,” he mumbles. He has messy blonde hair, big doe eyes, and a pasty complexion. His defeated expression doesn’t quite match with his red and gold scarf. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Nurse! Nurse!”  
You hear a fifth year snicker in the distance. Your despair is replaced with irritation. “I’m fine…Why…” you sit up with a grunt, “…are you wearing a scarf? It’s bloody hot for fall!” You tug at your sleeves and begin to feel the sweat gathering beneath the thick black layers.  
The boy shrugs. “My Granny told me to bundle up and…” He stops and you search his face, noticing a streak of mud across his forehead where he must have wiped his arm.  
“What?”  
“Well…Even though I’m independent now, you know all grown up and on my own… Granny always knows.”  
Instead of being irritable with the kid who just added the icing to your mud cake of misery, you smile. “My name’s ___. Sorted into Hufflepuff yesterday!”  
He looks up at you and grins feebly, revealing crooked baby teeth. “Hey I’m a first year too! Gryffindor. Name’s Neville Longbottom.”  
You both struggle to standing positions and he picks up your books for you. “So you live with your grandmother,” you ask and lead the way back to the school.  
“Yeah Granny’s practically raised me. She’s pretty strict but she did teach me one spell yesterday!”  
You enter the school through a side hall, looking to the floating signs (put in place for confused first years) for guidance. “What spell did you learn? I don’t know any spells yet because my parents are both muggles…Maybe you could teach me!”  
Neville clears his throat a moment and tugs out his wand. With bone white fingers he says, “Lumos!”  
There is a moment of hesitation before all the lights in the hall burst then extinguish. Some girlish screams can be heard from down the passage. Once the candles relight themselves, you can see that Neville has put his wand away and is wiping frantically at his eyes. You put a hand on his shoulder, take a glance around, and break out into a grin. “That was bloody brilliant!”  
Neville sniffs. “What? I messed it up!”  
“Who cares? You did magic! Real magic.” Excitement for the year ahead begins to flutter in your chest.  
You both continue on your path, smells of the Great Hall beginning to waft tantalizingly.  
Once Neville recovers, he looks at you harder than before. “You swear a lot,” he says, “Granny wouldn’t like it.”  
“What are you gonna do?! Snitch?”  
He seems taken aback. “I just…” There is a long pause, broken by an exclamation of “Bloody hell!”  
You look at him in wonder.  
He begins to giggle, his chubby frame bouncing with elation. “I’ve never sworn before! Bloody hell!”  
You begin to laugh as well and start to question whether Hufflepuffs really are the nicest. You would rather have been sorted into Gryffindor if they are all as sweet as Neville Longbottom.


	2. Year 2

“So you’re telling me that there’s this gigantic snake thingy…in the school basement… if you look at it you die…”  
“…and Harry is going to go find it and slay it,” Neville finishes for you.  
You look around the greenhouse, as if asking assistance from the plants. Neville has been helping you after school on your Herbology project ever since your mandrake got angry and took a chunk off your favorite robe. “Does this have anything to do with the two-faced professor that Potter defeated from last year?”  
He pats the soil around the mandrake stem with a smirk at your obvious dismay. “The basilisk has actually been around since Hogwarts was started.”  
You swat at his glove to get his attention. “Well why wouldn’t they just tell us if they knew? Put it in the orientation packet: ‘All students should be aware of the deadly basilisk in the dungeons. Also, school colors are to be worn at all times, weekends excluded.’”  
This makes him laugh, his hand running through his fluffy hair and making it stick up on top. “You’re such a freak.” His face reddens as he attempts to look cool and nonchalant.  
“I bet you wouldn’t talk that sassy to your boyfriend Potter.”  
Neville’s head is now a very large, very round tomato. “Harry is nowhere near my boyfriend! We don’t even talk that much except in the dorms.”  
“Yeah right.”  
“Really…He’s always running around with Ron and Hermione while I…”  
You give your mandrake one last pat before carefully depositing it on one of the greenhouse shelves. Your eyes catch Neville’s expression as you are tugging off your earmuffs. He looks sad. Neville’s face is naturally downcast in a timid way but this is different. “Hey…You and Potter are best friends. Most people, including me, have never even talked to the Boy Who Lived.”  
He sets his gloves on the table before starting outside. As you follow him out, you see the ground where you fell on your first day and smile a bit. “Neville…I never realized that bothered you. Just promise me one thing,” you stop walking and see him begin to falter, “Neville, get over your fear of eye contact and look at me.”  
He looks up, slightly deflated.  
“Promise me you won’t be stupid and try to go save the world alongside Potter in an attempt to be important.” You want to tell him that he’s important to you, that he is your only real friend that you feel comfortable around and you think he feels the same…but you don’t, knowing that such a statement might alter your relationship.  
Neville stands frozen before touching your arm slightly. His palm is warm.  
“Do you promise?”  
“I guess.” His hand drops to his side.  
“You can’t just ‘guess’! This is serious shit. Pinky promise on your Granny’s life.”  
“Do we really have to involve my…”  
“Yes.” Your eyes squint sternly.  
He intertwines his pinky in yours and holds it. Looking into Neville’s doe eyes you don’t give a mandrake’s ass about Potter and his fancy scar. Neville didn’t need to save the world; he had started saving you the moment you met.  
“Potions starts in 10 minutes. Snape would kill us if we’re late.”  
You punch him lightly on the shoulder. Neville has been worried about Snape’s punishments since he had to clean cauldrons for 5 hours after losing Trevor in the dungeons. “Look out,” you tease, “Maybe old greasy hair works for the Dark Lord too! Nothing in this school is safe anymore!”  
Neville appears genuinely perturbed as if picturing having to clean Voldemort’s cauldrons after school as well.  
You chuckle and start to sprint, yelling back, “Race you there!” He starts to gain on you quickly, a grin splitting his sad features. For a 12 year old chunk of chub, Neville sure knows how to run.  
The stone walls of the school whip past as you run in a blur of adrenaline. You beat him inside and can hear Neville mumbling ‘bloody hell’ behind you.


	3. Year 3

You lean your head back to rest on the wooden pillars of the bleachers, feeling the vibrations of the raving Hufflepuff students above. Neville nudges the dirt with his shoe and looks at the way it turns to mud in the pouring rain beyond your shelter.  
Sitting here under the stands had been his idea. Here there is no chance of getting wet but also no chance of actually seeing the Quidditch match taking place above. Neville has been keeping score based on the amount of dirt being stomped, falling through the cracks onto your heads.  
“I’m never going to know who wins,” he grumbles. “Harry said this game was important!”  
"Potter thinks every game is life or death..."  
"He told me to watch specifically..."  
“Well I think it’s kind of adventurous ‘watching’ this way. All I need is a cigarette and I could be straight out of an angsty teen muggle movie.”  
“What? Whatever...It’s freezing. Look at the frost.”  
You look and concede that there is indeed frost upon the trampled grass outside. “Do you want to go out? Walk around?”  
Neville looks at you as if you’ve gone insane. It's not the first time. “Did you hear what I just said? Do you see the rain?”  
“This is boring, I don’t really care whether Hufflepuff or Gryffindor wins, and I want to see the stars.” Neville is still staring so you stick out your tongue at him, yellow from the homemade butter beer you attempted to concoct earlier in your room.  
“But…”  
“I’m bored! Save me!” You fake swoon and let your body thump into his. His arm is feverishly warm in contrast to the chilled air, his skin soft.  
Neville flicks your hair away from his arm and waits for you to grudgingly sit up, then does something you never would have expected. He stands and crawls through the beams, casting his body out into the downpour. “Are you coming,” he calls as if he throws out the 'Common Sense of Neville's Granny' rule book every day. He doesn’t. Not by a long shot.  
You both walk for a bit, shoes sloshing and sticking in the pits of mud. “Now what,” you ask once the ice water has soaked into your robes thoroughly.  
“I don’t know; you’re the one who wanted to take a bloody walk!”  
You frown, the sound of cheering fans audible in the distance (though you can't even see the field due to the buckets of rain being dumped on you both). “Sometimes I think I’ve created a monster…such sass…”  
Suddenly you see a dementor in the air above, headed straight for the match. Ever since Lupin’s class on the soul-sucking hoods the things have given you the creeps. Glancing over at Neville's drawn in features you can tell he feels the same way. Trying to ignore the foreboding the sight gives you deep in your stomach, you continue to trudge through the wet earth.  
“Watch out!”  
A big hunk of mud smacks you in the face with a squelching thud. Glaring at your dork of a friend doubled over with laughter, you bend down and make a mud pie that then hits him flat in his juicy buttocks.  
“Hey this is sort of fun,” you comment with a satisfied grin when you see that he is no longer smiling quite as wide. The war is on...  
An hour later you walk into the school tracking sludge, much to the disdain of Filch and his cat. The tabby stares at you with wide yellow eyes. Once you pass them, your repenting faces fall and giggles fill the empty stone halls. It is an art, disobeying while not yet crossing the line to punishable behavior.  
Noticing the mud still clinging to Neville’s blonde hair the next day with satisfaction, you only now realize that he never once mentioned the match after you had stepped into the open, accepting heaven's tears. The match wasn’t that important after all, you suppose. Longbottom meets your smile across the Great Hall, his gaze falling to his heaping plate with rosy red cheeks.


	4. Year 4

Inviting Neville to Hogsmeade was a big step on your part. Ever since that day in the rain your crush on Longbottom had grown exponentially. You were pretty good at acting nonchalant around him but your heart ached every time he left the room. And though you hung out alone together all the time, going outside of Hogwarts’ walls with the sole purpose of seeing each other seemed a lot like a date…He had said yes with dark eyes that looked like melting chocolate…  
“Professor Sprout keeps talking about you. It’s a little unfair that my house head likes you better.”  
Neville chuckles beneath layers of wool. It is the middle of winter with snow piling two feet high; it seems like your butt will never feel anything ever again. Lots of students had taken one look outside and postponed their holiday shopping. You were grateful that Neville hadn’t cancelled. Glancing over at him as you walk, you figure no one would be able to tell he was cold if it weren’t for his three layers of socks and ruddy cheeks; his countenance was at a brightness that only one as innocent as Neville could achieve.  
“Sprout really likes you too,” he argues.  
“Doubtful…”  
He raised his arms in protest. “She gave you that gillyweed sample!”  
“It was slimy and green,” you say, “She hates me.”  
“Now you’re just being stubborn.”  
“Says the person who would believe magic didn’t exist if told so enough times.”  
He tilts his head to the side, flinging the pompom on his hat to hit him in the face. “Are you trying to say something?”  
“You’re gullible,” you reply bluntly.  
“If you say so.”  
You both laugh at that. The snow underfoot is starting to thin as you near the town. Lights dance in the distance. You feel like you’re in some sort of muggle Christmas special on TV.  
“Who’s your favorite teacher,” Neville asks.  
“McGonagall. Isn’t she everyone’s?”  
“You know you’re not always very nice with all that sarcasm…”  
“Hey!”  
“…maybe you should’ve been a Gryffindor so you could push people around and blame it on their own cowardice.”  
You shrug (a real struggle due to the four coats you had bundled beneath back at the castle). “You sort of just insulted your own house. Plus, yellow goes so well with my complexion!”  
The streets are bustling despite the chill; the combination of falling snow and hurried wizards make the scene slightly chaotic. Yet beautiful.  
“Butterbeer,” Neville suggests, his arm bumping your own (though you barely feel it, it was more like a collision of winter padding).  
You nod and a few minutes later sit on a rustic wooden bench with your bare hands warming on the glass mug. Neville sits across from you and the fact that both of you huddle together over the table almost makes you forget that he chose not to sit closer. His round face is only inches from your own as you discuss homework and shops and plans for winter break.  
“Are you going to visit your parents,” you query. He told you about their condition as first years, spilling the details in the way only eleven year olds can do. You had proved trustworthy however, and he had even suggested your coming with him to St. Mungo’s sometime.  
He says yes and hides his frown behind a sip of beer.  
“I got them something…the picture of them was hard to find but McGonagall helped me.” You pull the double frame from your bag. One side held Neville’s parents at some sort of party as students at Hogwarts, posing arm in arm. The other held the two of you with a couple friends, having a pet play date as first years. Your cat was sniffing Trevor in the background. “I thought you could give it to them to put in their room and maybe they would remember.”  
Neville holds the frame in his grasp gingerly, as if given a priceless artifact. His frown turns to a small smile and silently he guides you out of the shop and onto an empty sidewalk. Just as you are about to inquire as to his purpose, he runs his fingers through your hair and brushes them against your cheek. His face is close and his breath smells like butterscotch and spearmint.  
“Thank you,” he says before leaning in. His body is warm against the cold and his lips are incredibly soft.  
Never in a million years would you have expected Neville Longbottom to initiate a kiss. To kiss you beneath a gentle snow fall with increasing passion as he realizes that you are not pulling away.  
It’s the absolute perfect moment.


	5. Year 5

Your sneaker hits Neville’s under the table. You grin. With a face as still as stone, he reciprocates the favor. Sitting, the words on the page in front of you remaining a mystery as your feet battle below.  
It’s a Saturday so the library is practically empty. Normally, a couple playing footsie in a public space would attract gags and sneers from the Slytherins and a look of disrespect from the Ravenclaws (it is a library) but today you and Neville could be making out on the table and never be interrupted. You love the weekends. You get to see your boyfriend without his usual cloak and tie. Neville is a fan of sweaters and man, does he pull off the whole sexy nerd look!  
“I’ve been staring at the same page for 10 minutes,” he mumbles, meanwhile giving your shin a soft kick.   
You focus on the book in front you for the first time; the chapter open is about centaurs. You’re not even taking a class of Hagrid’s this semester…why did you pick this up again? Oh right, Neville had wanted to study so you easily agreed but then when you were trying to find your arithmetic textbook he had grabbed your hand and your mind went kind of…blank. You slam shut the dusty, leather cover and rest your chin on your hand. Your free fingers start to play with the sleeve of his sweater.  
“You’re not helping,” he warns with a goofy smile. His pasty skin begins to flush.   
You duck your head to see the title of the monster he has elected to read. “Herbology? Again? I’m certain you’ve already memorized that entire thing and recited it back to Sprout, dazzling her woolen socks off.”  
Neville doesn’t argue, but closes his own book before grabbing your hand for the second time that day. There is a moment of comfortable silence before he speaks. “I thought you should know, Potter started a sort of club…to fight You Know Who. He calls it,” he lowers his voice as if someone might overhear, “Dumbledore’s Army.”  
Your eyes drop to the table, tracking the lines in the wood with dismay. “Let me guess. You were the first to sign up.”  
“Not the first…”  
“What about that promise you made me, years ago? Not to go trying to save the world? I care about you…”  
Neville grabs your other hand. “We could do it together! You’re much better at dueling than I am…!”  
“Fighting villains is fun in books. We’re just kids!” An image resurfaces of the two of you, pinkies intertwined, looking at each other with earnest eyes…only 3 years ago but it seems like a lifetime.  
Neville stands up and walks around the table to kiss the top of our head, ruffling your hair in the process. “I’ll be careful…it’s just…it’s just that I have to do this.”  
You lean your body into his and try to believe him.   
Just kids…


	6. Year 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys sorry it's been so long since I've written!!! I've been super busy and honestly haven't felt much like writing...Only one more chapter after this though so I'll try to get on it! Thanks for your patience! (P.S. I'd love any comments you have about this chapter or any previous!)

After the funeral for Professor Dumbledore many students gather in the Great Hall for comfort food. Everyone files in crying. You see your friends at a table with some Gryffindors, huddled around a bowl of earwax Bertie Bott’s, but you step outside the steady stream of people entering and don’t join them.  
You observe the melancholy mingling, house robes thrown aside for the night as all join together to mourn. Despite your own sadness, the thought of joining the others is not appetizing. What is there to say? You only talked to the Professor once. You had been helping the house elves grab a jar from the top shelf in the kitchens when he had walked in silently, long blue robes billowing in the stagnant air. With a twinkling eye and mischievous grin he had grabbed a pastry from one of the trays when the elves were not looking. You were. The way that he had looked at you, it was like you were part of some grand joke. The Professor had a way of making even those as painfully regular as you feel special. After the incident you had only run into him twice more, but each time he had smiled. You couldn’t help but smile back. Now he is gone and you are not in the mood.  
Your eyes fall on Neville. He’s sitting a few seats away from your friends, surrounded by fifth year girls. Another reason not to join in.  
Ever since Neville joined Dumbledore’s Army last year things have been awkward to say the least. He started to spend his weekends practicing dueling spells rather than in the library with you. Over the summer you hardly talked. Then, when you returned to Hogwarts this year you had a change of heart. Neville is one of the few people who knows how good you actually are at magic, so when you asked if you might finally join him in fighting Voldemort you were surprised at his response. Rather than jumping at the opportunity to spend more time with his girlfriend, he told you it was far too dangerous in a way that brooked no argument. You even suppressed the stammering of your heart and tried approaching the famous Harry Potter to ask him to convince Neville to let you join. Potter was nice enough but it was blatantly obvious that he had no idea who you were.  
It’s not like you had been dating one of his best friends for almost two years or anything…  
To top it all off, Neville had started to lose weight last year and came back this year completely changed. The only sign that the dorky Longbottom you met back in year one still existed were his big floppy ears. You look at them now, eyes watching the fellow Hufflepuff girl whispering in one of them. Those ears that you used to stroke tenderly, the skin turning pink at the touch. Another girl grabs his hand. The hand that had pressed against your cheek in the cold as you shared your first kiss. All of the girls pounced as soon as the brave Neville Longbottom, companion to Harry Freaking Potter, had turned hot. No one had cared before, when he was always tripping on the steps up to class. They had all pushed past the ball of dough scrambling around for his books. No one else knew about his parents or that sometimes he cried himself to sleep at night. They only care about his pretty face and skill in a duel.  
It’s been three weeks since you and Neville have spoken even a word to each other.  
You think you might scream (or barf) so you cram yourself back through the double doors, pushing against the crowd, and start to make your way to the dorm. You are halfway to the kitchens and tears are streaming down your face by the time he catches you in an empty hallway.  
“Wait!”  
You stop at the sound of his voice and violently rub the water from your eyes before turning to face him.  
He looks at you a moment with his big brown eyes before realizing that he stopped you, not the other way around. His gaze falls a bit from your stony face. “Did you know him at all?” Great. Small talk.  
You don’t mention the pastries or the smile or the fact that Dumbledore now seems to be the only one who actually cared (maybe you’re just pissed but in this moment the statement rings true), instead replying, “Not nearly as much as you or Potter.” The words taste bitter and they cause Neville to take a small step away from you.  
“Why do you always call him that? Potter? It sounds like…”  
“At least I know *his* name.” You think of Potter’s face when you told him you were dating Neville. He had smiled as if he knew all along but you had seen his scar wrinkle in confusion. In that moment you realized that your boyfriend was living a whole other life. A life he didn’t want you to be any part of.  
Creases begin to form on Neville’s perfectly tanned, acne-free forehead. “What?”  
The tears are starting to come again. You begin to turn away. “Why don’t you run back to your little girlfriends?”  
“My what? You’re not making any sense! Listen, I know I’ve been distant but…”  
You cringe away from the hand he tries to place on your shoulder.  
Taking it back very slowly, he says, “We’re over.” The lilt to his voice is slightly hopeful and you know it’s more of a question than a statement.  
You face him only long enough to nod, but as you walk away the image of the despair written across his beautiful features imprints itself upon your vision and rips you to shreds. You thought he wouldn’t care.  
How does Neville always manage to surprise you?


	7. Year 7

Though your body is occupied dodging spells and casting curses, your heart and mind feels the sudden shift in the air. All around you Death Eaters are falling. The brawny man you had been dueling swerves out of reach of a stray spell and straight into your jelly legs jinx. As he comes crashing to the floor, you allow your muscles to slack, back aching from the stress of battle.  
Time seems to slow now that there is a pause in the constant calculations of moves and counter-moves. The castle is chaos. Students, with faces tensed and streaked with sweat, surround you. You are all literally fighting to survive. Bodies litter the floor, some dead and some wounded. Some men and some women. Some children. Your stomach churns at the sight of Colin Creevey’s face upturned next to your right foot, his life seeping onto the cold stone.  
You had seriously debated when McGonagall had offered for the older students to stay. Your desire to be a part of taking down dark magic had been practically slapped out of you when Neville had refused your joining Dumbledore’s Army last year. Despite your buckling fear of battle, however, you found yourself staying behind while others (including your friends) had fled. Then, once the Death Eaters had arrived that fear had somehow been set aside, to be replaced with ferocity you never knew you possessed. Maybe you stayed to prove to your ex that you could. Maybe to prove it to yourself.   
Not long after you feel the shift in the air, the battle is over and all begin to gather in the Great Hall to mourn. You feel yourself transported back to the Professor’s death, voices of parents and siblings and friends joining in a cacophony of wails, and feel that same urge to flee that you did last year. As you walk away from the grand double doors for the second time you run across Potter. His pace is slow, face a grimace, but he is alive. His scar is gone and Voldemort is dead and for the first time Harry Freaking Potter is just another kid who fought and who now fears whose body he might see laid upon those tables. He manages a pained smile your way as you pass each other. You can’t help but smile back.  
You wander the halls a bit but the smells of death linger in the air and it is only a matter of time before you can’t take it any longer. Throwing open the front door you are hit with both a cool breeze and the sight of Neville Longbottom standing alone out on the step. A shiver runs down your spine.  
“Hey.”  
“Hey.”  
The sun is coming up and underneath its orangey rays you watch Neville’s silhouette wipe the blood from his brow before motioning for you to join him in watching the morning arrive.  
“You fought.” His voice is hoarse.  
“I stunned a few Death Eaters. I hear you killed the snake.”  
“I also gathered hundreds of bodies and watched in horror as their families recognized their frozen faces upon cold slabs of wood…” His eyes fall to the ground and his shoulders hunch as if his body is collapsing in on itself. It’s as if his metamorphosis back into his former self is progressing. You can see that he feels the death in the air more potently than the victory. Somehow this observation tugs at your heart strings more than just the sight of him. You never cared about the wave of his hair or the tan of his muscled arms. You never cared when his skin had been pasty and his belly flowing over the hem of his pants. You cared…care…about his unfaltering compassion. “I’m sorry.”  
“For what?”  
“For everything. For snapping at you just now. For neglecting you and not seeing that you were the one who saw the real me more than even Harry and for keeping you away from the fight…I tried to play off my unwillingness as a fear for your well-being but I can now see it was much more selfish than that. I wanted to be the hero for once and every time I saw your face I went back to that day I promised I wouldn’t do just that.”  
Somehow in the course of this speech you and Neville have come to face each other. Your eyes dive into his. “I was selfish too. When I…when I made you make that promise it was because I wanted you to myself. I thought that if you didn’t associate with Harry or fight then no one else would see how brave you are or how kind and…I could keep you all to myself. I thought the others might notice you and claim you for themselves and I was right…”  
Neville’s thumb wipes a tear from your cheek and you think back to that day in Hogsmeade when he had kissed you. You can’t even begin to explain how much you want him to kiss you right now, beneath the fading starlight.  
“Now it’s all over -Voldemort and our years at Hogwarts and heck even childhood- and I feel kind of empty, but in a good way? Like now I have all this space to fill up and to start over again… So many have died but now I can live and feel like they would all want us to live too…Do you know what I mean?”  
You think of all the death you’ve seen and heartbreak you’ve felt and the fact that you’re only 18, with an entire existence ahead of you. “Yeah. I do.”  
Neville’s thumb is still on your cheek and your hand has found his hand. It’s like you’re children again, picking up where you left off. The years of estrangement melt beneath his touch.  
“I want to make a new promise. I promise to include you in every part of my life and to…”  
“Neville.” You want to say I love you but your throat closes up and your breath is shaky. He nods and you know he knows and he’s kissing you and you’re kissing back and everything else fades away and you love him so much it hurts.  
And after all the struggle and the death and the pain…you both live happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece kind of took on a life of its own and though it's just a stupid fan fiction I'm actually really proud of it. Thanks so much for reading! I hope after this you love Neville just as much as I do!


End file.
